Deborah Gordon is a nonresident senior associate in Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program, where her research focuses on oil, climate, energy, and transportation issues in the United States, China, and globally.
Since 1996, Gordon has been a policy consultant specializing in transportation, energy, and environmental policy for nonprofit, foundation, academic, public, and private sector clients.
From 1996 to 2000, she co-directed the Transportation and Environment Program at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. From 1989 to 1996, she founded and then directed the Transportation Policy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Additionally, Gordon has worked at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (1988–1989), developing clean car feebate policies under a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1989). She began her career as a chemical engineer with Chevron (1982–1987).
Gordon has served on National Academy of Sciences committees and the Transportation Research Board Energy Committee, lectured widely and given keynote speeches, and been featured on radio, TV, and in print media. Her first book, Steering a New Course (Island Press, 1991) offered a comprehensive overview of U.S. transportation, energy, and environmental policy. Her recent book, Two Billion Cars (with Daniel Sperling; Oxford University Press, in paperback, 2010) provides a fact-based case and roadmap for navigating the biggest global environmental challenge of this century—cars and oil.
